We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Yes, it's a must-read. Amusing too. I forgot how much the Euroland tariffs screw US products. Trump is right to push back.
Long sample:
"Trump’s voters get him because not only is he we, but we are he. We were not snowflaked-for-life by effete professors who themselves never had negotiated tough life-or-death serious deals. Instead we live in the real world, and we know how that works. Not based on social science theories, not based on “conceptual negotiating models.” But based on the people we have met over life and always will hate. That worst boss we ever had. The coworker who tried to sabotage us. We know the sons of bums whom we survived, the dastardly types who are out there, and we learned from those experiences how to deal with them. We won’t have John Kerry soothe us by having James Taylor sing “You’ve Got a Friend” carols.
The Bushes got us into all kinds of messes. The first one killed the economic miracle that Reagan had fashioned. The second one screwed up the Middle East, where Iraq and Iran beautifully were engaged in killing each other for years, and he got us mired into the middle of the muddle. Clinton was too busy with Monica Lewinsky to protect us from Osama bin Laden when we had him in our sights. Hillary gave us Benghazi and more. And Obama and Kerry gave us the Iran Deal, ISIS run amok, America in retreat. All to the daily praise of a media who now attack Trump every minute of every day.
So let us understand a few things:
NATO is our friend. They also rip off America. They have been ripping us off forever. We saved their butts — before there even was a NATO — in World War I. They messed up, and 116,456 Americans had to die to save their butts. Then they messed up again for the next two decades because West Europeans are effete and so obsessed with their class manners and their rules of savoir faire and their socialist welfare states and their early retirements that they did not have the character to stand up to Hitler in the 1930s. Peace in our time. So they messed up, and we had to save their butts again. And another 405,399 Americans died for them during World War II. And then we had to rebuild them! And we had to station our boys in Germany and all over their blood-stained continent. So, hey, we love those guys. We love NATO.
It makes sense to divide conditioning efforts into anatomical categories like Lower Body: Legs/Lower back; Upper body: Chest/Upper Back/Arms; and Core, even though most exercises use some of everything.
It is obvious that legs with strength and endurance provide and maintain basic functionality for men and women regardless of age, so let's use Legs/Lower body as an example for applying the Maggie's 3-category fitness model (resistance, calis, and cardio).
What can we do, in each of our exercise categories, to push our lower bodies towards further strength and endurance? Basic lower body-related routines are below.
Rule #1: IF IT ISN'T HARD, IT ISN'T EXERCISE. Our deplorable inner lazy-ass quitter is our enemy in life.
Heavy resistance for lower body strength:
Deadlifts Barbell or goblet squats Kettlebell Farmer's Walks Sled pushes and pulls
Lower body-oriented Calisthenics for muscle application and agility (many or most of these are included in typical cardio/calis gym classes)
High Step-ups (with or without kettlebell) Lunges (with or without kettlebell) Kettlebell Swings Box Jumps and jumping squats Wall sits or isometric 90 degree squat and holds Body weight squat variations (squat and press, squat with heavy ball throw, etc) Mountain Climbers Viper-toss side shuffles
Mostly lower-body Cardio and HIIT Cardio for endurance:
Longer Jogs and short sprints. Nothing long enough to promote arthritis. 20-30 minutes with jogs + sprints is enough. It's the sprints that build endurance anyway. Stair machine Rowing sprints Ski Erg sprints - done right, they are legs, back, and core, not arms Stationary bike (or bike) longs and sprints Jumping Jacks Jump Rope variations
There are many other things and variations to do but we try to keep it simple.
People tend to write about grief in the context of a death, but there are many sources of grief. We see grief reactions in all sorts of losses: loss of physical or mental capacities, losses of a relationship, disappointments and failures in dreams or careers, financial losses, loss of a home, and so forth.
It is inevitable in life that we accumulate scars. Most griefs scar over in time. New adaptations are achieved. Sometimes, grief does not relent.
I was reminded about how much the American press loved Trump until he was nominated, and thought about how much the American press and intelligentsia loved Russia until Trump. The Dems, Obama and Clinton, wanted to cozy up. Then I thought about how much the American left hated the FBI and the DOJ until Trump.
You get the feeling that Trump is living rent-free in a lot of heads, and controlling their brains. Mind games.
Put yourself in Trump's shoes: a highly successful businessman, in the latter years of his life, taking on the Herculean task of running for and winning the U.S. presidency. In victory he finds nothing but abuse, scorn, and betrayal, by friend and foe alike. He is surrounded by landmines, his intelligence community plotting a path to make sure he steps on one landmine after another. This is a journey few mortals would undertake or survive.
Is it any wonder he is pushing back against those trying to destroy him and his presidency, including the FBI, DOJ, and CIA, all in the thick of seditious activity against the duly elected president? He has few friends in Washington, D.C.; many who should have his back are eager to bury a knife in it instead.
The simplest explanations are often the best. Walk a mile in Trump's shoes, and his actions make all the sense in the world. A guy chosen by ordinary people, trying to make America great again despite so much of America trying to stop and destroy him. How would any rational person behave when standing in Trump's shoes?
I think there are essentially two takeaways from this historic event in Helsinki. The first is that Donald Trump is a bold, risk-taking statesman whose demotic style of delivery prevents many from appreciating the beneficently radical nature of his diplomacy. Maybe he will wind up being played by Kim Jong-un. But maybe his astonishing meeting with the tubby tyrant in Singapore is the beginning of the normalization of North Korea. If that happens—and I acknowledge that history suggests it is a big “if”—then President Trump will have achieved a world-historical diplomatic victory. His willingness to meet “jaw to jaw” would then be seen as a gambit of genius.
Maybe Putin is running circles around a gullible Trump. But maybe it is a real, as distinct from an Obama-Clinton merely rhetorical, reset. Then that, too, will be seen as a masterly and peace-enhancing initiative.
Mrs. BD spent a couple of days in Dublin. Quaint tiny picturesque village in southern NH within view of Mt. Monadnock. As her pic shows, it's the home of Yankee Magazine (and of The Olde Farmer's Almanac).
Sheesh. How do you talk with somebody like that? It's always been interesting to me how it is possible to use a victim pose to bully or attack others. Problem is, victim posture supports self-esteem and seems to morally justify obnoxiousness - but gets your own life nowhere. Well, being hostile is fun in some ways.
Apparently UNH is a hotbed of oppression, racism and misogyny, so that's a shame. Poor gal is blind to her incredible privilege. Her superiority tone bugs the heck out of me.
Some people term them "real jobs." This is kinda brilliant even if you think Mike is a twit. Peripitaeia is a good word. So is anagnorisis, but the most painful and tragic version of it is the reality of oneself.
“One of the consequences of such notions as ‘entitlements’ is that people who have contributed nothing to society feel that society owes them something, apparently just for being nice enough to grace us with their presence.”
“No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems – of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind.”
Story is that the tuxedo was indeed invented (and named after) the exclusive and still exclusive private neighborhood of Tuxedo Park, NY.
It was especially taken up by the youth at the turn of the century, who hated the fuddy-duddy formal wear, and dinner wear, of the time copied from aristocratic Brits. In 1889, the tux was accepted as appropriate wear in the Dress Circle at the Met Opera. Officially, a tux is considered "semi-formal;" but the meanings of formal, semi-formal, etc have devolved rapidly in the informal direction for two generations.
Nowadays, "black tie" evening weddings, for example, means tux, not tails. Nobody owns tails outside the royals and, for the past two generations in the US, events with tails are considered pretentious and in poor taste. Rented costumes. No royals in the USA.
Most women will say that all men look best in a tux, and absurd in tails. As time goes on, my need for my nice Brooks tux (had it for at least 30 years and wore some holes in the pockets) decreases each year. Last year, I only needed it twice. Suits seem fine for weddings and fancy holiday parties these days.
The real FBI, and the real mob. Joe is one heck of a calm clever fellow. The wonder of this interview is, for me, that "Donnie" could have made a great mob boss. A wonderful story.
A cup of seawater contains 100 million cells, which are preyed upon by billions of viruses. Fifty million tons of fungal spores are released into the atmosphere every year. And the human gut is home to somewhere between 500 and 1,000 species of bacteria. The more we learn about microbial biodiversity, the clearer it becomes that the vast majority of life has long gone unseen, and unobserved. The flowering of microbial science is revolutionizing biology and medicine in ways unimagined only a few years ago, and is inspiring a new view of what it means to be alive...
Good explanation about how regular people get screwed by the global elites. Rebel. Much smarter than reporters, and far more successful too. I enjoy the ways he calls out the NBC/Euronews reporter whenever needed.
My father-in-law said of the guy, "He's beginning to show his age." And so is Bush 41. There are many remarkable life stories out there that inspire awe in us regular folk with low-risk and low-drama lives.
Aggressive online virtue signaling is a fundamentally two-dimensional act. It has no human depth. It’s only when we snap out of it, see the world as it really is, and people as they really are, that we appreciate the destruction and human suffering we caused when we were trapped inside.
Men, and some women, love these activities. I do not mean lawn-mowing, I mean meadow maintenance without grazing animals on the land. Yeah, ideally you want cattle. Have you even found a pile of snake eggs beneath a cow pie? I did, once.
In New England, we have become so accustomed to the pastoral sight of meadows and fields that we forget that they are not natural. These were created out of the wilderness with tremendous effort for grazing and farming. Neglect them for 5 years, and they will be beyond repair because nature wants them to become woodland again.
At the farm, we have had meadows suitable for haying or grazing, areas that require annual brushwacking (because more brush than grasses in those areas), and steeps that need scything or something similar.
These sorts of land maintenance are deeply satisfying and, with machines, deeply relaxing with a cold beer or three. No lifting, work gets done. Somebody observed that open field maintenance is like running one's hand over the curves of one's beloved.
Haying for real hay is tricky. Timing is everything. Around here, July for commercial haying. You need the hay to go to seed, and then you need to let it dry after cut before the baler. No rain. Stored wet hay can spontaneously combust in storage, or, at least, turn moldy. You know that already.
With the dairy business moving out of New England, and horses fewer and fewer, we had no market for hay. We switched to conservation mode which is a non-economic mode.
The non-economic conservation mode for open-space maintenance is based on the idea that meadow critters (meadow-nesting birds, rodents, snakes, etc) are pretty much done by late July. However, many wildflowers are at their best in July and August and the bugs and butterflies rely on them.
We recommend mowing/brushwacking non-commercial, ungrazed meadows once per year in early September or late August. Let the mowings lie. They will mostly disintegrate by April.
If you like walking paths, keep them mowed like lawns, about 8' wide paths so you can stroll around your grounds with a coffee or whisky and ceegar without getting soaked with dew or infested with ticks while bird-watching.
We had a wet meadow in a flood plain along our trout stream (with trout pool for swimming) where the grasses and sedges grew so thick that once/year was not manageable. We had to brushwack that 5 acres patch twice/year or the machine could not handle the density of the lush growth. I was sadly aware, though, that the wetland meadow critters (Wood Turtles, Leopard Frogs, snakes, toads, etc) did not appreciate that at all and I felt bad about damaging that habitat and sometimes killing them. I wonder if it might have been left well-enough alone, but it's just what we always did.
And if you are out there in your gardens, now is a good time, and the last chance, to shear back the late summer and fall-blooming perennials that you don't want to grow too tall and scraggly, eg Asters, Daisies, and Seaside Daisies.
It's been a cold Spring in New England. Tomato plants aren't growing vigorously. New England is marginal for tomato compared to New Jersey or South Carolina, but home-growns are so tasty that we persist anyway. We really only get a crop in July-Sept while in south Jersey they can be harvesting garden tomatoes June-October. Unless you have a greenhouse. Some days, like today, I wish I had one. But naw, not really. Who wants the hassle?
Burberry destroyed $38 million worth of clothing and cosmetics —
Story is that the tuxedo was indeed invented (and named after) the exclusive and still exclusive private neighborhood of 
